The article starts out with a strong statement: "A constitutional clash
over whether House members are immune from many forms of Justice
Department scrutiny has helped derail or slow several recent corruption
investigations of lawmakers."

Jerry Markon and R. Jeffrey Smith go on to note that "House members
have increasingly asserted the privilege in corruption probes, often
citing a
2007 court ruling that said FBI agents violated the
Constitution when they searched the office of then-Rep. William J.
Jefferson (D-La.)." FBI officials said that the decision would
"seriously and perhaps even fatally" undermine corruption probes of
members of Congress.

Has this turned out to be true? According to the article, legislative
immunity challenges under the Speech or Debate Clause put an end to an
investigation of former representative Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), hampered
probes of Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) and former representative
John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), and slowed a pending corruption case
against former representative Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) (see a
second article on what happened to these investigations).

But the worst thing appears to be that leaders of both political parties support this turn of events. "The
incoming and outgoing House leaders ... have jointly cited the
constitutional clause to challenge much of the indictment of Renzi, who
was extensively wiretapped. He is charged with attempting to benefit
financially from a land deal." A House brief in the Renzi case compared
FBI methods to the wiretapping of J. Edgar Hoover.

It comes as little comfort that Lanny A. Breuer, the assistant attorney
general who oversees the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section,
has said that legislative immunity "is not a roadblock. If you're
corrupt, we're going to look at you, and we're going to prosecute you
aggressively."

Is Breuer telling the truth? According to the article, the Obama
administration "has abandoned without filing charges at least seven
investigations of current or former members of Congress." Not all were
due only to legislative immunity challenges, but abandonment doesn't
sound very aggressive to me.

This doesn't mean that everyone got away with their unethical or
criminal conduct. William Jefferson was convicted (not of what was
found in his office, but what was found in his freezer), and despite
the fact that his FBI probe was abandoned, Tom DeLay was convicted.

One lawyer, who spoke anonymously, as if talking about the Constitution
can get you into trouble, is quoted as saying, "If you can't introduce
legislation, a bill, a speech on the floor, how do you make the case?''
In other words, legislative immunity makes life very difficult for
prosecutors. And with the decisions of the last few years, this is
increasingly true of ethics commissions, as well.

Absolute legislative immunity, such as members of Congress have with
respect to their legislative activities, is not something that local
government legislators have, at least not yet and not in an ethics
context. But if they do get it, there is no reason to believe that
ethics commission and inspector general investigations and enforcement
proceedings will not be hampered just as much. And if there was no
enforcement, would local legislators seek advice, make disclosures, go
to training course, or follow open meeting laws? In other words,
would they take part in ethics programs at all?